Lifestyle Choices

4. Discover Your Own Guidelines

Find out how many different principles and ways of managing stress you can successfully incorporate into your life. Then do it. Stress in a relationship can be a way of improving not only the quality of the relationship but also the value that one places on it. This demands facing discontent clearly and squarely and expressing it in a way that doesn’t try to make someone else responsible for it. For instance, there are two ways of complaining when your mate squeezes the toothpaste in the middle. One is, “My God, you did it again. What’s wrong with you?” and the other, “You know, I have a problem. I am really bothered by people squeezing the toothpaste in the middle. I can’t seem to get over it. I’d be grateful if you didn’t do it. It would help me a lot.” (more…)

Long-term stress can destroy your good looks, your vitality, and eventually your health. But contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t mean there is anything intrinsically dangerous in stress. On the contrary, stress is the spice of life—the challenge just waiting to be met, the excitement of something new and unknown, the wonderful, exhilarating feeling when adrenalin flows through your body and makes you feel ready for anything. It only means that if you do not know how to move from the active, stressed state of mind and body into the passive state of psychophysical relaxation at will, then you, like most people (for few have this skill naturally), are likely to find yourself stuck in the stressed state for long periods. And if it happens often enough and lasts long enough, you can become physically or mentally ill. (more…)